Just a place to share some thoughts

Day: September 9, 2010

After I blogged this morning about yesterday’s experience with Google Instant, I read this articleon the Huffington Post. The author used Google Instant to go through the alphabet and see what the top results were. It was all based on the question “Why does W get the weather?” At the end of the article, Craig Kanalley asked “Are your results the same?”

It’s an interesting question and if they are the same everywhere, it lends some credibility perhaps that you can buy your way to the top of results. But, I can easily think of reasons why they would differ.

geography of your IP address;

your login – Instant is only available if you’re looked in with your Google account;

your browsing / search history.

So, I did try a couple and some were the same but yet, some were different. Here are the results from my certainly non-scientific time wasting exercise and a bonus at the bottom

There was a great deal of speculation about what the latest innovation from Google. When it was revealed, it turned out to be a feature called Google Instant. It seems to be the next logical step in the evolution of search from the basic search.

After all, we’ve had the “auto complete” feature available for a while. As you type text into the search box, Google attempts to give you suggestions about what it might be that you’re searching for. If you see it (or something better), you can quickly select it and complete your search.

Google Instant takes it the next step and shows you the actual content of what it’s suggesting.

While it’s not available to every user yet, it has real potential. According to the Official Google Blog, here are what they’re calling its “core features”.

Dynamic Results – Google dynamically displays relevant search results as you type so you can quickly interact and click through to the web content you need.

Predictions – One of the key technologies in Google Instant is that we predict the rest of your query (in light gray text) before you finish typing. See what you need? Stop typing, look down and find what you’re looking for.

Scroll to search – Scroll through predictions and see results instantly for each as you arrow down.

I think it’s just downright cool. While it hasn’t officially rolled out everywhere, you could get a preview yesterday so I took the opportunity to search for “Amherstburg”.

I must admit that I was a little distracted watching the results come in as I typed. But, I had the same feeling when the auto complete function was activated as well. Now, it’s just the way that I do business! I’m sure that, with time, it will become natural. It’s all in the name of good searching and getting good results. Power users are going to continue to use the Advanced Search layout anyway.

This searching algorithm seems to be the same. I did the same search without using Google Instant and typed the same letters and got the same results. Interesting. How about in low bandwidth situations? According to what I read, Google will recognize this and turn the feature off. Not everything will be correct as you can read in these 25 Google Search Suggestions.

Yet, despite this, the “experts” are out with their negative comments already. There are polls available to let you vote it down. Geesh. If you just don’t get it or like it, there will be a feature in your profile to turn it off. You’ve got the best of both worlds. It’s like the outrage when Google turned on their background picture feature. Don’t like it? Don’t use it.

I think that it will eventually be accepted and probably emulated by the other search engines. In the meantime, it’s really interesting to experiment.

This is the first issue of Project PLN. We are collecting posts from teachers from all around the world on important educational topics. We hope you will share this with others as we try and connect the educational world.

Yoza cellphone stories are short, hip and free. Read them, leave comments and enter the writing competitions to win airtime. Each story below is a series: a new chapter is published every day, so come back tomorrow to read the next chapter!

Our double-sided color poster features definitions of primary and secondary sources and guides students through the process of historical inquiry. What questions should you ask when examining a primary source? Where should you look for reliable secondary sources? How do you use the evidence you've gathered to make an argument?

ast Thursday, @Ev posted some very interesting numbers on the Twitter blog related to users of Twitter.com and top apps in the ecosystem (many of which are Twitter’s own). We’d like to share a few of our thoughts on it:

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This site is for university instructors and students who have an iPad and want to know about some very useful iPad apps for school use. On the Apps page, you can subscribe to the RSS to receive updates to any of the Apps categories (blogs).